Building Your Audience

We have all had
that moment. The moment where we wish we were well known and did not feel like
another face in the crowd. For some people it is a brief thought. For others,
they spend their life yearning to fulfill this desire. We all desire to build an
audience. Just that one chance to be on the main stage. Well, I have good news.
Don't worry. One way or the other, we will all stand out at one time or another
and build an audience with a quickness.

But what do you do
when you have a "moment"? Thatawkward moment where you stand out in an undesirable way. The moment
when you said or did something so out of character that later on you could not
believe it was you that actually did it. Things like saying something hurtful
without realizing the situation first, maybe messing up in a big business
meeting, or dropping your food on the floor in front of everyone. Now how many
of us have done that one? Worst of all, word spreads fast and then everyone
knows. Almost everyone deals with these moments, actually we all do. The ones who
won't admit it are...you guessed it...liars. I have been on both ends of this
scenario, probably more times than I would like to admit.

You go home that
night still full of embarrassment,wondering how you could have done that thing. You toss and turn in the
bed wondering how everyone is going to react to you tomorrow. You might even
have a nightmare about the experience.You wake up the next morning dreading the day ahead. You go in the
bathroom and look in the mirror in disgust. You still cannot believe what
happened. You feel emotions such as embarrassment, guilt, and maybe even shame.
You just want to crawl back in the bed. But wait a minute, don't do that. There
is some good news for you.

I learned a few
things that made those feelings go away before you have to sleep on it that
night. So here goes:

1.) Just deal with it: Get on the phone or the computer.
Make sure you contact some of the people that saw or heard about the encounter,
and just let them get it out of their system. Let them get a laugh, and be
done. If it happened to make anyone mad, contact them and bring it up
immediately. Let them yell at you and be done with it. It is going to happen
sooner or later, so just deal with it.

2.) Make a big joke before they do: I am not the biggest fan
of poking fun at myself, but for some it does wonders. I have seen some people
repeatedly joke about one of those moments to the extent they break new ground
with people they never knew before. It brings out the person's sense of humor
so much that people just love being around their new found personality. I have
seen people walk up to someone they did not know and ask, "Do you remember
that time I (fill in the blank)? Now that is leveraging a bad situation. They
took a situation that should have made them clam up, and used it as icebreakers
to engage in conversations. They used their own misfortune to create
commonality between other people.

3.) Know You are Not Alone: If you decided to make everyone
that had one of those moments join your club, everyone would be a member.
Everyone will have one of those moments eventually. Usually the ones making the
jokes (or getting mad) have already had a moment like this. Realize that now
they are just on the other end of the joke.

Despite the way it
made you feel, no one could have done that moment as well as you did. It could
not be rehearsed or duplicated.Most
importantly, don't sweat it. Don't go to bed at night with a feeling of regret.
Confront it. If you are ever going to be successful at anything, you better
learn this quality fast. Moments can stop you, especially when you make a
bigger deal about it than anyone else. We all have those moments. The moments
when we feel like everyone is staring at us after what we did. No one usually
cares enough to make more than one comment about it anyways, so loosen up. Even
though you are in the spotlight now, you will lurk back into the crowd before
you know it. You will probably have another moment later on with a brand new
audience.

Don't
let those moments make you freeze. Don't let those moments define your
character. Strangely enough, if you face the music with this, it usually makes
people inquisitive on why you handled it this way. It will intrigue them how
you could have done such a thing, and still be exuding with confidence. Moments
like these can be a real growing experience for us if we learn how to embrace
the opportunity. Like it or not, life is going to deal us these moments. We can
take them a lot easier than leaving them.